Community shares Pride

| PublishedJuly 13, 2016 - 12:56pm | UpdatedJuly 23, 2016 - 12:15PM

For 10 days this month, from July 14 to 24, people in Halifax can’t help but be aware that the city is celebrating the 29th annual Halifax Pride Festival. Rainbow flags are flying everywhere, prominent crosswalks have been painted with rainbows and events are planned citywide. With recent events, such as the shooting in Orlando, this year’s theme, “This is why,” resonates strongly.

“This year’s theme, ‘This is why,’ is all about giving our LGBTQ+ community a platform for personal stories, triumphs and goals,” Willem Blois, Halifax Pride committee chair, said in a news release. “Whether your personal pride is a celebration, a political movement, a journey of self-discovery, or an everyday way of being, everyone has stories to tell and experiences to share.”

The festival is a potpourri of events, beginning with the official flag raising and Mayor’s Reception on Thursday, July 14, at the Grand Parade beginning at 5 p.m. Cape Breton’s Ann-Marie MacDonald will be speaking at the Halifax Central Library that evening as part of the TD Speaker’s Series.

Throughout the week, there will be events for people of all ages, from Out Under the Stars Pride Youth Dance at the Garrison Grounds on Thursday night, July 21, musical performances in a number of venues, to a candlelight vigil at the Halifax Central Library on Monday, July 18, to a community fair and dance on the Garrison Grounds following the massive Halifax Pride Parade on Saturday, July 23. The festival winds down on Sunday, July 24, with a Pride Family Picnic at Sullivan’s Pond.

“There’s a new event happening at the North Branch Library on July 16 at 11 a.m.,” says Jason Rose-Spurrell (a.k.a. Rouge Fatale, a prominent Halifax drag queen). “Jane Kansas is hosting it and I’ll be reading from LGBQ children’s literature, in drag.”

The marshals of this year’s Halifax Pride Parade are young people from Highland Park Junior High. The school has an active Gender Sexuality Alliance group in the school and the school has done a lot of work in the past few years to ensure that the entire school, including 130 students, has embraced the diversity of the student population.

“A few years ago, a student came to me quietly and wanted to talk,” says Ann Marie Danch, an educational assistant at the school. “We found a quiet spot and I found out that the student realized that she felt that she was really a boy.”

From there, many things progressed, with the student requesting to be called Alex, to teachers and students accepting this change and for the student to begin looking at sex change surgery and all that entails.

“Within the school, the kids have participated in the day of silence around awareness of LGBTQ+ struggles. We usually have about 95 per cent participation, so pretty much everyone in the school takes part,” Danch says.

“They have hosted other schools for a GSA roundup to meet and exchange ideas and support/concerns. They do things like assemblies for the Pink T-shirt day in September, rainbow cupcakes and valentines for everyone in February, random notes blitzes in lockers or classrooms.We have done the Pride Parade a couple of times, joining the Youth Project group.”

Last winter’s weather caused washrooms at the school to be flooded and the ensuing repairs led to a suggestion that one of the washrooms be changed to a gender-neutral one.

“The kids started calling it the ‘everyone’ washroom,” Danch says.

The kids at the school have been recognized with human rights awards for their efforts and Danch says they were blown away when they were asked to be the parade marshals.

“It’s really interesting how this little conversation with Alex has changed the dynamic of the whole school,” Danch says. “We’re a diverse community, with kids from different nations, from different family structures and backgrounds, and this type of event has cut out a lot of the awkwardness that might be felt. The students are accepting of everyone, no matter their background, and it’s really changed the energy of the whole school.”